In a Doge-Eat-Doge World, Can Every Altcoin Survive?

Published on

Mar 26, 2014

by Coindesk | Published on

Coinage

A few experts in this area took the stage at CoinSummit San Francisco on Wednesday 26th March in a talk that included litecoin creator Charlie Lee, dogecoin founder Jackson Palmer and Paul Vernon of the altcoin exchange Cryptsy.

The timing of CoinSummit gave the panel a great opportunity to discuss auroracoin, the experimental altcoin aimed at providing the people of Iceland a digital option over the country's fiat denomination.

"People aren't educated about the coin. I think it's important to educate and get merchants on board."

Auroracoin's market performance over the last few days indicates that people are taking the coins and selling them on.

Said Paul Vernon, CEO of Cryptsy: "It's just market driven. The fact that there is a drop is because people are getting rid of the coins."

"I'm not sure the people who have received theses coins got any education other than 'okay, here's your coins'," he said.

Lee says people see litecoin, for example, as the auxiliary currency for bitcoin: "People view litecoin kind of as a backup to bitcoin. If bitcoin dies, there's litecoin," he said.

Dogecoin creator Jackson Palmer says that transactions are most important for his altcoin.

"One doge equals one doge. Our goal is not to get the coin to $1,000; it is to get people to use it. It's all about active use."

"Bitcoin is already speculative enough. But if you want something more speculative invest in altcoins," said Lee.